Tag Archives: naughty

The current homework for the group is to write a short story inspired by a taboo. I stole this idea shamelessly from Alison Macleod who suggests it in an essay in ‘Short Circuit’ – a great book for anyone interested in writing short stories.

It’s a commonly held belief that all good stories have some sort of conflict at their centre, and taboos have conflict built in. There are lots of ways you could go with this… taboos can be to do with people, feelings, places, actions; from something as mild as smoking behind the bicycle sheds through reading someone else’s diary to incest… murder… who knows? The challenge will be to make sure the reader understands the allure of the taboo in question, and think hard about what the character has to lose. I look forward to hearing the results!